Book One: Good Intentions

-- Fight As Though The Odds Aren't Against You --

(2)

It was a relief to sit in the bar lounge of the Phoenix Casino and be ignored by the passers-by.

Diana smiled to herself as she watched the people down on the casino floor below and stirred the ice in her drink. She'd never been to a casino as a patron and guest before.

There were many things she'd never done before, even after two years in Man's World.

She watched a stout couple squeal and hug each other as they won a large amount of money at a table with a spinning wheel and a grid of rectangles. She tilted her head to study the cards being placed out at one of the tables, and tried to figure out how the game worked.

Around her swirled the chatter and mutter of the casino patrons, an unending murmur in the background. She could block it out if she chose, but it made a rather pleasant white noise, compared to the very distinct silence of the Watchtower.

She'd been at the Watchtower far too much lately. Her injuries didn't permit her to join in with any recent actions, and she'd only just started retraining. Only stretches and strengthening moves just yet, but in another week she would need opponents to start practising against, giving her bones a chance to strengthen as they knitted together.

Diana shifted in her chair, and the woman reflected in the glass partition that separated this lounge from the floor below moved in concert.

The woman in the reflection of the glass looked nothing like Wonder Woman, or even Diana of Themiscyra.

Her hair was Nordic blonde and piled up on her head. Her eyes were blue, yes, but they were an icy shade, not the colour of the sea around Themiscyra, and her skin was pale as milk, not gently tanned from the sun. The features were different, too, more elfin, without the earthy beauty Diana was more accustomed to seeing when she looked in the mirror. And the face in the reflection bore none of Diana's present scars.

She hadn't asked Zatanna to cast the glamour just because of the scars. The Amazons had admired physical beauty, yes, but their interest had been more for the fluid, muscular beauty of the human form in action rather than the static, wraithlike beauty so preferred in the women's magazines of Man's World. Her scars did not distress her, although she saw the distress in the eyes of those around her.

She had simply wished to be without the attention her presence usually brought her while she attended Zatanna's show and dined with the magician afterwards.

The mirror showed the illusion, Zatanna had explained after she'd cast the spell. "This is how you'll appear to people."

Diana had studied the features in the mirror, "Not exactly the nondescript person I expected," she'd noted, and Zatanna had smiled.

"Well, this way, they'll stare, but they'll be too intimidated to approach."

"I think that's the story of my life here in Man's World," Diana had said, wryly. She had indeed grown accustomed to the stares and admiration of men; their instinctive response to her when she was around them, the unsuccessfully-hidden desire that flared in their eyes as she walked past. But for all that they looked much, they rarely spoke of such interest.

And the only man in whom she'd expressed an interest had turned her down. With good reason, but the answer was still 'no.'

Sitting in the sunlight streaming through the window above her, she held out her left hand before her and stared at it. To the naked eye, she saw herself as she was, but the illusion was complete to everyone else. The scabs were giving way to scar tissue, and within another couple of weeks the scar tissue would all but have vanished, leaving skin that looked as untouched and perfect as it had been before the battle.

A voice interrupted her study. "Have we met?"

Startled, she looked up into the suave, interested features of Bruce Wayne, and nearly called him by name.

Then she remembered that he couldn't recognise her beneath the illusion Zatanna had cast and looked swiftly away, fighting the urge to laugh. Her friend had claimed that the beauty of this illusion would intimidate men. Unfortunately for Diana, Bruce Wayne was not the sort of man to be intimidated by beauty.

"I don't believe so," she said, aware that he was watching her. She'd betrayed herself with her reaction to him, perhaps if she was careful, he might mistake it for fluster instead of recognition? "You must be mistaken."

He shook his head, "I was so sure..." Regardless of his mistake, he sat himself down in the chair to the left of her and held out his hand. "Bruce Wayne, of Wayne Enterprises."

She took his hand, and reached for a name out of nowhere. "Donna Kent."

One dark brow arched, "Kent?"

Yes, after Clark. "It's a perfectly serviceable name." Diana looked pointedly at the hand he was still holding. "May I have my hand back, Mr. Wayne?"

His thumb rubbed warmly over the scabs on the back of her hand, pressing at the raised, pink skin, and sending an odd twinge down her spine. "Zatanna's work?" And his voice wasn't the brash, charming one of Bruce Wayne, but the deeper, more solemn voice of Batman.

Diana stared at him in surprise as she pulled her hand from his. "You're not supposed to be able..."

His eyes crinkled a little at the corners as he grinned. "It doesn't work on her, or you, or anyone on whom she has protections," he told her. "But I'm the only one of that ilk, so you have nothing to fear." He gazed out over the floor. "Are you meeting with her?"

"I'm attending one of her shows - a matineé, and then we're going out to dinner afterwards," she said, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. "You?"

"Pure serendipity. I was attending to some Wayne Enterprises business," he said, sitting back. One hand waved lazily to flag down a waiter and one headed for their table immediately. "We'd just finished our meeting." He turned to the hovering man, "A cognac - your best." He regarded the glass in Diana's hand. "Would you like another?"

"Cola, please," she told the waiter. "We?"

He steepled his fingers before him. "Myself, Lucius, and a couple of other directors."

"And you left them behind?" Diana asked, surprised that he'd put aside business for the chance to talk to a pretty woman. It seemed so out of character for him, although she had to admit that she knew Bruce better in the guise of Batman than the personality he projected as Bruce Wayne.

"I told them I'd meet them at the airport," he dismissed casually, and regarded her with lazy indulgence.

She felt faintly exposed beneath that gaze. "So if you can't see Zatanna's work," she asked, careful to keep her voice even and level, "How did you know she'd done anything in the first place?"

The smile grew faintly predatory. "First, you're very well-known. Second, those scars you're presently sporting are an instant draw to the eye - people notice them. Third, people are noticing you - but their reactions aren't because they recognise you as famous or because of the scars."

"And the insistence on touching my hand?"

"Most of this kind of work is only effective on sight. However, what has been done to you works on touch, too. The tactile aspect comes off rather more completely than sight, actually - which is backwards to the way it usually is."

"Appropriate for Zatanna," Diana murmured, although her mind was spinning. Did the man notice everything?

"Very." The cognac and the cola arrived, and he paid the waiter, tipping quite generously before taking a sip from the belled glass.

He met her gaze over the lip of the glass, and she studied him. He was handsome by conventional standards, with the ease and confidence born of wealth and privilege. The eyes were deepset and hooded, and while the look he gave her was languid, the intensity of everything that drove him could not be hidden, merely veiled. Not for the first time, she wondered at this man who played the fool in the light, yet stood a sworn protector to Gotham in the night.

"Like what you see?" The smirk was entirely Bruce Wayne, and a confusing contrast to the man who'd taken his cowl from his head so she could see his face as he told her that he would never allow her close enough to take him from Gotham.

"A woman would be blind not to," she replied, easily. Yes, she liked what she saw; but more than that, she liked what he was, in all its complexity.

His mouth crooked. "Thank you."

She turned her gaze back to the floor of the casino, once again conscious of his gaze upon her. "Why did you approach me?" Her voice was low, the question serious.

"How could I not?" The reply was lazy, easy. "The most beautiful woman in the room..."

"Bruce." She stopped him before he could go any further, keeping her voice at a level at which no-one else would be able to hear. "Leave the playboy behind."

"Donna..." he chided, still smiling.

Not for the first time, Diana felt irritation rise in her, a swift, sure pang in her chest. He might be able to compartmentalise effortlessly; she could not.

She stood, leaving her drink where it sat on the glass tabletop, condensation dripping down its sides. "Very well, Bruce," she began, softly, "If you aren't leaving him behind, then I will."

Once again, she was reminded of just how fast he moved for one without metahuman abilities. He caught her wrist in his hand as she turned to leave, his fingers too hot on her skin, the finely-chiselled mouth too close to hers. "Diana..."

His murmur was barely audible, but she heard it clearly enough. "I don't play games."

"Neither do I." And the voice was Batman's. "I approached you because I wanted to, Diana. Is that reason enough?"

This close to him, she could taste him in the air beneath the tang of his aftershave, an olfactory intoxication. He was dangerous in more ways than mere combat. She had accepted his initial insistence that he would never allow her close enough to distract him from Gotham, but had resolved not to merely sit back and give up the fight to persuade him otherwise.

"I thought I would take a walk on the floor below," she said, not quite answering his question.

"Would you accept my company?"

"Would I be walking in the company of the playboy or Bruce Wayne?"

"You forget," he murmured back. "Bruce Wayne is the playboy."

She shook her head in negation. "The playboy is a part of who you are, but it is not the whole of you."

His lips twitched, the finely-chiselled shape of them drawing her brief attention. "Perhaps you would be amenable to meeting elsewhere?" His gaze was fixed on her own mouth as she dragged her eyes up to his, and again she saw the brief flash of desire, swiftly tamed to his will.

Control is important, Diana.

She wondered what he was like when he lost that control, and coloured under such thoughts. "Where, then?"

"Tomorrow," he said. "At six, in the training room."

"Training…?" In the last few days, she'd been looking for someone to spar against, and was finding herself frustrated at every turn. "Tomorrow night?" She knew that her stance changed slightly, became more war-like, tense and ready for battle.

Bruce's smile turned into a smirk. "Down, girl," he said, very softly as he let her arm go, leaving a cold patch on her skin. "I'll see you then. Enjoy your show."

And, with a charming smile, he walked away and out of the bar.

----

He didn't pull his punches for her, and she didn't ask him to.

Nevertheless, as he laid her out on the floor of the training room, once more, Batman felt a certain frustration take hold of him.

Usually, their sparring matches went on for long periods of time, her strength against his skill, each of them watching, attacking, defending, learning. He was better at observing the patterns of attack and defence; she was better at getting out of the situations where a weakness was exploited to give an advantage.

However, her injuries meant she was still favouring her right side - the side more injured in the battle against the volcanic monster. It left her wide open to any attacks he made, and he'd already chided her twice.

"You're lowering your left side defences again," Batman said as Diana climbed to her feet. He kept his voice curt, and watched the brief frown flit across her features. It settled into a rueful half-smile.

There should have been some kind of a law against a woman being that beautiful while still sporting scars.

"My humility is getting a workout at least," she said dryly.

Her preparedness would get a workout, too, Batman decided as he lashed out at her unready stance. Clark would have chided him for being too harsh on her. In Batman's terms, there was no such thing as 'too harsh' when it came to training; better in training than the real thing.

Her hand caught his wrist as he punched, lightning fast, and he felt her haul on his arm, adding weight to his momentum. The pulling motion caught him off-balance and he went with it, kicking up at her as he tumbled, head over heels.

When he got back to his feet, she was ready for him, smiling slightly.

"Very good, Princess," he told her, pleased that she'd anticipated that much.

"Thank you, Batman," she replied, as casually as if they were sitting down to dinner.

And then they were back to business. His next series of attacks were high, and he watched the pattern of her defenses as he advanced on her. She was stronger high and on the left, but low and right…

He attacked from that angle and watched her struggle to defend herself. Yes, that was her weakness there…

However, as he closed in on her, she still managed to ably deflect his attack - albeit somewhat more stiffly than she usually would.

Blue eyes flashed in pleasure at her defence, and Batman was equally pleased by her progress. As the training session progressed, she was becoming more aware of the gaps and holes in her guard - something to which she'd been largely oblivious before. And blind spots could be dangerous for more reasons than one.

His own blind spot when it came to her was nothing obvious. Paranoid as he was, he hadn't noticed it at all, which was saying something. But he'd finally realised that she spent much of her time in the monitor and training rooms, which was also where he was used to spending his time in the Watchtower. Looking back at their association, particularly in the last year, he concluded that while his reasons for being in the Watchtower had been valid, they had been influenced by the possibility of seeing her, speaking with her, even if only in passing.

His decision had made him reconsider whether he needed to be at the Watchtower for smaller duties that could be taken care of in the Batcave and had brought him to the point where he spent only the barest minimum of time on League duties.

Until she'd been injured by the volcano creature.

That night, he'd handed Gotham over to Nightwing, Batgirl, and Robin, and done his research up in the Watchtower.

He told himself that it was League business and important. A creature that was created from Clark's genetic material, and further engineered to combat other well-known League members was a danger of the highest priority and required all his attention. Being in Wayne Manor with the reports coming in from his colleagues out on the streets would only distract him from the research required.

It was true; it was League business and important, and Gotham would be a distraction he didn't need

But he couldn't deny that Diana was important. The research was for the League, but also for her, because he'd lost enough people he cared about to do everything in his power avoiding losing another one.

Knowing all the reasons why a relationship was a bad idea had very little to do with whether or not he actually cared.

The training room air-conditioners hummed a little louder, responding to the minute changes in temperature caused by active bodies radiating heat. Neither of them was sweating, but she was tiring a little. No surprises; she wasn't yet back to full strength, but the purpose of today was to ensure she did.

He spotted an opening in her defence - just a moment's negligence - and went in for the kill. Metaphorically, of course. This time, it was a full-body take-out and she was down for the count. If she'd been a criminal and this was Gotham, she'd have been tied within moments.

As it was, he had her pinned, face-to-face.

And not just face-to-face, either.

His armour was insulation against more than just blows; it meant he couldn't quite feel the body lying beneath his. Unfortunately, body armour was no insulation against the awareness of her proximit. In spite of himself and all his decisions, he felt himself tensing, and knew that she - considerably less armoured, and just as aware of him as he was of her - could feel it, too.

Bruce wondered what it would be like to lie against her, no armour, no cloth, just skin dragging against skin and the flat surface beneath them. Heat swept through him, over him… Time flexed, as though it were an elastic that could be dragged out, and he could feel her breath finely against his jaw, a seductive promise, devoid of words.

Diana broke the spell, huskily. "Should I ask?" She arched a brow at him, not struggling to get up, but querying both his silence and his stillness.

His self-control took command and dumped a bucket of cold water over his thoughts.

"No," he replied, and rolled off her and onto his feet, letting his cloak slip down around him in concealment and using the cool of the air to calm his body. "When you're ready, Princess," he said, evenly.

Control is important.

Her eyes flashed, whether in frustration or anger, he didn't know, and she launched herself at him. For a moment, he thought she'd allowed her anger to get the better of her, before he realised that she was still quite in control. Her emotions were fuelling her actions, but they weren't controlling it.

It pleased him to see that she was using her frustration as a goad, mastering it and letting it drive her on. He knew how that worked.

Of course, there were always some things you couldn't entirely sublimate - as the moment which had just passed showed.

Batman blocked a series of punches, choosing stances that wouldn't just stop the blows, but which would also lessen the impact of her fists against him.

There was irony in the fact that Bruce Wayne's reputation as a womanizer was widely-known, when in fact, he could count his lovers on one hand. Even more ironic was that, of that handful of lovers, almost all had known he was Batman and not merely Bruce Wayne.

As he kicked at her hip with the heel of his boot, he found his boot caught in a firm grip. She flipped him around and down, laying him out on the floor, face-down, with one boot planted firmly in the small of his back, and her hands holding down right wrist and elbow.

Not bad. The position was probably more uncomfortable for her than it was for him, and dangerously off-balance. It wouldn't be effective when used by someone who didn't possess super-strength. However, when used by someone who did, it was effective enough. Laid out flat as Batman was, he had minimal leverage. Of course, minimal leverage was very different than 'no leverage at all.'

As he regarded her out of his peripheral vision, he smirked a little. "Going dominatrix on me now, Princess?"

"The gods know nothing else seems to work," she muttered, stepping back to let him up and returning to a ready-stance as she added, louder, "Unfortunately, I left my lasso in my room. Later, maybe."

It was the first real sign of frustration with him since their discussion in the Batcave, some weeks ago. He'd been expecting such signs a lot earlier than this.

Since the night in the Batcave, he'd been on his guard against her, spending no less time with her than they usually did in the course of their duties, but being careful not to seek her out when a little spare time loomed. In the last few weeks, Batman had become acutely aware of how subtly she'd crept into his thoughts during their time working together in the League.

He didn't dare remind himself how startled and then pleased he'd been yesterday afternoon as he glanced over the bar lounge and recognised her from nothing more than the cant of her head and the line of her wrist.

Diana was dangerous to him; strong, beautiful, and deadly. She made him want to own her, to possess her, to claim her, and yet also wanted to tease her, to laugh with her, to love her.

But he didn't.

Batman kept everyone at arm's length, whether they liked it or not. Whether he liked it or not. That was the way it had to be and he might regret it, but he dared not change it.

As he climbed to his feet, his earpiece bleeped - a signal from Batgirl in Gotham. He held up one hand to signal a halt to their sparring. "Go ahead."

Batgirl's voice filled his ears. "We've got a major drug bust going down with the GCPD. And I'm not kidding. This is major. A large party of kids and teenagers have OD'd - I think it's the batch we failed to track three weeks ago. Half the cops in Gotham are gathering on the scene - it's..." Babs paused a moment. "It's not pretty."

Drug overdoses never were. "You're at the scene?"

"Nightwing's in there, feeding me."

He'd turned on his heel and headed for the doors, automatically. "Send me the co-ordinates. I'll take a transporter down." Batgirl dictated the co-ordinates, and closed the communications line.

He looked up and paused. Diana was standing in the doorway, blocking his exit.

"Do you need help with this?"

"Not from you." The words were sharper than he liked, but he couldn't afford distractions right now. "I don't need another person to watch out for."

Her eyes narrowed and he silently cursed her stubborn pride, even as she insisted, "You don't need to watch out for me, Bruce."

What the hell; he was in for a quarter, he might as well go for the shiny silver dollar. "Someone has to."

"What does that mean?"

He moved on instinct, his fist landing on the rib that had been broken, and she gasped and stepped back, but didn't fall. It was healed - he would never have hit her otherwise - but it still hurt, and he faced her without apparent remorse at the painful point made. "You went into that fight unprepared, without thinking." At least his anger at her recklessness was no act. "You got yourself injured. Had there been others relying on you, they might have been injured too - and not everyone has your resilience."

She drew herself up, however much the injury might hurt, she was a warrior at heart, and strong in mind and spirit and not just body. "Which is why I went up against it myself," she replied, steadily, although he could see the hurt in her eyes, hear the harshness of her voice. "Better me than someone else."

"Perhaps. It was still rash."

"I survived it, Bruce," she said. "Another would not have been so fortunate. You would not have been so fortunate." Then she bit her lip, probably at having reminded him that he was, after all, only human.

"And that's the problem," he said, quietly now, but no less harsh.

"What?"

He regarded her evenly. "Love makes fools of us all." He could not afford to love her. Never mind that his heart didn't get a say in it; his mind was made up and he'd live with his choice. Batman sidestepped her and palmed the door open.

Diana didn't follow him, but he heard her words as he passed into the corridor to head for the transporters.

"Perhaps." Her voice was pitched very low and he could barely hear it. "But if I had the choice to love or not to love, I would still choose to love you, Bruce."

His chest squeezed unbearably for a moment, causing him to pause for a split-second. Then he kept walking on through the mostly-silent Watchtower to the transporters, leaving her behind without a further word. He knew he showed no reaction on the outside, but something in him caught at her words.

He was only human, however much he had to deny it at times.

I would still choose to love you, Bruce.

----